Edison: His Life and Inventions by Dyer and Martin, Signed by Thomas Edison, Inscribed by Dyer to George Kleine, First Edition, Two Volumes, 1910

Dyer, Frank Lewis and Thomas Commerford Martin. Edison: His Life and Inventions. New York: Harper & Bros., 1910. First Edition. Two Volumes, Octavo. In the publisher's original cloth boards with gilt stamps and titles to boards and spine. Presented with a new archival clamshell case. 

This is a signed, first edition printing of Edison: His Life and Inventions by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin. A two-volume printing, this book is signed on the front free endpaper of the first volume by Thomas Edison, in his characteristic and collectible umbrella-like signature.

The book is additionally signed and inscribed by one of the authors, Frank Lewis Dyer: "To my friend George Kleine / with compliments and best wishes / Frank L. Dyer / Orange N.J. / November 28, 1910.," below Edison's signature. George Kleine was an American motion picture producer and distributor, who purchased a version of Edison's Kinetoscope film projection system in the 1890s and in 1909 was involved in the formation of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company.

The book was written by Frank Lewis Dyer, who headed Edison's legal and corporate affairs for over a decade, and Electrical World editor Thomas Martin, who published many of Edison's papers. A two-volume, illustrated work, the memoir was “designed ...to bring the reader face to face with Edison; to glance at an interesting childhood and a youthful period marked by a capacity for doing things, and by an insatiable thirst for knowledge; then to accompany him into the great creative stretch of forty years, during which he [did] so much.” 

Filled with stories and anecdotes from Edison, Dyer and Martin tell the story of Edison’s life through his inventions. Volume II contains a lengthy appendix detailing Edison's United States patents granted from 1868-1909 and his more than 1000 foreign patents, as well as informative diagrams and descriptions of his work on the telephone, incandescent lamp, phonograph, motion picture inventions and more. 

The book is "long regarded as the standard, authorized biography… [and] is a rich source of biographical details, particularly on Edison's early career" (Burt, The Biography Book, 125). 

CONDITION:

Good condition. 2 volumes. Octavo. In the original publisher's blue cloth boards with gilt stamps and titles. Illustrated with 26 full-page photogravures, including two frontispiece portraits. Minor fading to gilt titling on the spine. Light bumping to the cloth spines. Faint discoloration on the top left of the signature page. Minor splitting to front free end page in Volume One, not affecting signature. 

Presented in a new, matching archival quarter leather and cloth clamshell, with gilt titles and stamps to spine, and inlaid portrait of Edison on the front. Dimensions, in clamshell: 9 5/8" H x 6 3/4" W x 4" D.